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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mustrum_Ridcully" data-source="post: 5970174" data-attributes="member: 710">That is probably the ultimate crux. I don't just want to play a D&D that simulates what D&D has always been. But apparantly the current belief at WotC that is the only kind of D&D that has a chance after 4E that did try to actually innovate D&D and fix all those problems fans like me saw before.I love that - combat is a great puzzle piece. But if there is a 4E flaw here it is that combat is very dominant with the hour or so it typically takes for an interesting encounter to resolve. I could probably enjoy a game where combat can be done shorter... 4E doesn't force people to make it all about combat, but when you do combat, it will probably dominate a session (or way below the "encounter budget"). I can't change your feelings, I suppose, but why are healing surges in any way like "an item for more life"? Wands of Cure Light Wounds (D&D 3E phenomen mostly) and Potions of Healing (any edition) are "items that you click to get more life".Healing Surges are something very different, because you cannot buy Healing Surges, you cannot collect them in droves, they are not rewarded in any way by play. They limit healing and they would do so even in a Monty Haul campaign where the party has collected 5,000 Potions of Cure Light Wounds. They limit healing in a way almost no video game has limited healing ever. The closest resemblance I am aware of in a video game is Mass Effect 3 multiplayer, where characters can only carry a limited amount of medi-gel with them to revive themselves, but even that is not identical, since you can still be revived by others (if you can be revived at all, if a Banshee bursts her arm through your chest, there is nothing that can be done for that wave).And I experienced the 15 minute adventure day primarily in 3E because healing was not limited by something like healing surges. Healing was all over the place thanks to cheap healing items. And I believe these healing items lead to the introduction of healing surges, the idea being:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> 3E combat did - with the "proper" amountof magic items allow full health after each combat encounter. => 4E will assume full health at the start of any combat encounter.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> In 3E recovery was demanded only by daily resources, namely spells. => 4E introduced healing surges so that there were other daily resources that everyone would have and run out of, parallel to daily spells.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> In 3E spellcasters couldn't do much other than casting in combat, but this meant they couldn't keep up long thanks to all spells being daily => 4E introduced magic encounter powers and at-will powers</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> In 3E combat could get repetitive with maneuvers that either always work or almost never work based on the feats you had => 4E had encounter and daily powers that gave you special maneuvers and gave you at-will powers with minor maneuver quality.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> In 3E using daily powers (spells) was very powerful and allowed certain classes to dominate when they could afford (or needed) using them => 4E gave everyone such encounter-dominating daily powers so no one took all the spotlight.</li> </ul>Mayb the solutions they found for these 3E phenomena was not the one everyone liked, and maybe some of them were not deemed problematic or experienced by some. But there were all good reasons for making these changes, and none of them had something to do with videogames.But how much do wandering monsters really help? If the party ever decides to rest, it will have to face them. It seems to be a wise idea to rest early and often so you still have enough spells left for all those wandering monsters. Time constraints cannot be in every adventure - and they also put a lot of pressure on the DM - because if he miscalculates the challenges in his game, he may end up having the PCs have rest not because they "novaed", but because they did the bes they could and still couldn't make it to the final time-critical encounter in time - or they die there, out of resources and overwhelmed.And sure, the world moves on - but how much supplies do the NPCs have, how much new people can they recruit. Sure, they may change their base of operations - but any base of operation large enough to require extended rests for a party to deal with is difficult to move, and will probably set back other operations fo the enemy - so it may still end up being a net win for the party if the enemy has to move his base. All these solutions ultimately put a lot of pressure on the DM, because he has to engineer scenarios for this to work. I prefer the DM to be able to stay focused on the core of the story, and wandering monsters and NPCs moving their base isn't one of them.In my experience with Shadowrun 3E - casters always cast spells in ways to avoid all drain. And no one - neither caster nor street sam - sticks around long when he's injured.Shadowrun is pretty much my example here - other than injuries (and drain is just a form of injury), everything else is not pure mechanical/metagame resource like "daily spells". You have to manage your ammo and grenades, of course, but that's pretty much it (and usually minor). The challenge in Shadowrun was how to use your abilities and how to pick your fights (including entirely avoiding them) for your best abilities. Of course, within combats, one could argue that combat/magic/hacking/rigging pools where a form of metagame resource.An even better example could be Cyberpunk, since it doesn't have spells at all.</blockquote>

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